


Unbearable

by apolesen



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Katra, M/M, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:18:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolesen/pseuds/apolesen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As McCoy struggles with holding Spock’s katra, he finds himself stuck in the middle of a relationship between his best friend and a dead man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unbearable

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written back in 2009, for a prompt on the TOS kink meme: "I'd love to see fic dealing with Bones holding Spock's Katra. I want Jim completely irrational with jealousy, and somehow, someway, Bones gaining intimate knowledge of Kirk and Spock, and maybe the aftermath of that, maybe the bittersweet moment when Spock remembers Jim..." 
> 
> Reposted from my old journal, with some minor changes.

There had been changes in McCoy's mind before it broke loose in full; thoughts and memories that were obviously not his. He had not understood them at first, especially not where they came form, and the first truly disturbing fragment did not help his confusion. At first he had not even connected it with the fact that he knew equations he had never seen or snippets of poetry in languages he did not master. The circumstances had been trivial; the admiral's yeoman had come to hand over some documents that needed signing. Just when she said who they were from, the image had sprung into his mind, as if “admiral Kirk” was a secret password to some hidden part of his subconscious. In his mind's eye, McCoy saw his friend under him, head throw back, eyes clenched shut and mouth open. The image was so vivid that he could see his sweat-glimmering torso arch as he bucked his hips upwards; he could imagine just the way it would feel to be slammed into by that hot flesh.

‘Sir, are you all right?’ the yeoman asked, drawing him back to reality.

‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ he said, trying to smile and sent her away after taking the PADDs. He looked them over, ignoring the erection the sudden fantasy had caused. Still, while he signed the reports, he tried to process the image he had seen. If this was what it looked like, he had chosen the worst time possible to start having doubts about his sexuality, especially if he had fantasies about Jim (as if the poor man didn't have enough on his mind). He shoved what he had seen into the back of his mind and tried to forget about it.

But the fantasy was not as easily discarded as he thought. It let itself be suppressed until he went to bed, when it once again overwhelmed him. Now, he saw Kirk on top of him; the salty taste of his lips was in his mouth, the other man's hairless chest and fleshy stomach was pressed against his body. He sneaked one arm under him and caressed the small of his back, which made him gasp and press himself against him. The same hand wandered downwards, lifting his hips and pressed against his hidden opening. Alone in his bed, McCoy whimpered at the image and grabbed himself through his pyjamas; then, feeling it was not enough, he undressed hastily and returned his hand. The scenario ha taken on a life of its own - never before had he been this unable to influence what he imagined. Perhaps he was already asleep and it was all a dream, for there was an almost dream-like quality to what he saw, as if the images he was seeing were forced onto him. Even as he thought that, Kirk was tenderly fingering him in his mind, biting down at his jaw-bone and whispering endearments. He licked his ear, his nipples, moved down and took his erection in his mouth.

‘Now, now, please, Jim, now, t'hy'la,’ McCoy whispered at the same time in the fantasy and in his cabin. He imagined Kirk removing his mouth, grabbing his hips and entering him slowly, then stopping half-way. 'Do not tease me,' he said to the darkness and to his make-believe lover. ‘Claim me - I am yours.’ Jim draped himself over his body and, thrusting into him, he whispered:

‘I love it when you say that, Spock.’

McCoy gave up a mute scream and ejaculated into his hand. For a moment, he relished the feeling of fulfillment which quickly dwindled into nothingness. Then he remembered by what name Kirk had addressed him in the fantasy. Fear gripped him, not letting go of him for the rest of the night.

***

When they were finally away, having cleared space-dock and evaded the Excelsior, Kirk left the captain’s chair and came over to the science station, which McCoy had manned. They had not talked properly since last time he had come to visit him, when McCoy had been so drugged with tranquilizers he had not been able to keep track of a conversation, but for the first few moments they were silent. Neither of them knew quite what to say. 

‘How does it feel?’ Kirk asked finally.

‘Fine - the lexorin’s working.’

‘No, I mean - how does it feel? Him - in your head.’ 

McCoy stopped, thought and turned to him.

‘It’s unbearable. It scares me to bits,’ he admitted. ‘He's blotting me out - I almost don't know who I am anymore.’ Kirk looked like he was going to say something supportive, but the look on his face died when McCoy continued: ‘He's shown me things I wish I never had to see.’

He was silent for a moment, then said:

‘What kinds of things?’ Impulsively, McCoy shrugged, trying not to think of what he had taken to be fantasies, but had then realised were memories.

‘These really complex mathematical problems, for example,’ he said. ‘He starts working them through, and I’m stuck watching. I never liked maths much, but this is so intense it’s almost nauseating.’ Kirk gestured to him to continue. McCoy scratched his head and tried to find something else to mention. ‘All the snide things he’s thought of me over the years – as if I haven’t heard I’m illogical enough times. Memories, as well. From his childhood… I never realised his class-mates beat him.’

‘He never spoke of it,’ Kirk said in an odd, strained voice.

‘I can imagine why. Vile bastards, the lot of them.’

‘What else?’ he pressed on. ‘Does he speak to you?’

‘No, he only shows me things – or thinks them. I don’t know whether he actually want me to see them.’

‘Like what?’ Kirk’s tone of voice had grown almost desperate. McCoy forced himself to answer truthfully, but still avoided certain things.

‘Mind melds. All those other minds... Yours. I… I saw Tarsus IV.’ 

Kirk looked up sharply. 

‘That’s private,’ he intoned, a vehemence entering his voice and eyes which he had never seen in him before.

‘I didn’t mean to see it! For goodness’ sake, I didn’t mean to see any of it,’ he exclaimed.

‘What do you mean “any of it”?’ he asked. ‘What else have you seen?’ 

McCoy glanced around the bridge; Scotty and Sulu were nowhere to be seen, and Chekov was busy monitoring communications. It was the most private it was going to get aboard the ship.

‘He thinks of you,’ he said quietly, hoping Jim would understand. Then he added: ‘Of sleeping with you.’ The bereaved man had looked so defensive when he had mentioned Tarsus IV, but now his eyes seemed to darken with something like jealousy.

‘That is none of your business, doctor,’ he said, each word a stone dropping into him, as if trying to weigh him down into the depths of forgetfulness.

‘In fact it is, because Spock stuck his katra in my head,’ McCoy snapped back. ‘He knew I’d see those things…’

‘He didn’t mean it – it should have been me!’ He was almost shouting at this point. ‘You shouldn’t pay any attention…’

‘Do you know how hard that is?’ he answered, not able to keep his voice quite at level pitch. ‘For Christ’s sake, we share a mind – he’s in my brain! I feel what he feels when he thinks about it. I know every dirty thought he’s ever had about you, ever single place he’s ever touched you…’

‘Stop it – that’s an order,’ Jim snapped, but McCoy did not heed it.

‘You know, I always wondered how you ended up in such a bad state after his third pon farr – now I know. I never realised how deep that hormone-induce frenzy went, how much it changed him. Do you even know how much he enjoyed it when you started bleeding? Or when he broke your ribs, even though he didn’t do it on purpose? And do you know how he felt afterwards, when he went back to normal?’

‘Yes, yes...’

‘That he thought of killing himself for the guilt? Can you even imagine how much he hated himself when he saw what he’d done to you?’

‘Yes, I know that,’ Kirk shouted. ‘I felt all of it – I knew. We share a mind through the bond…’

‘Not like we do now,’ McCoy said, all those years of being the third one who was always left out overwhelming him. ‘I see everything he thinks, Admiral, not only what he want me to see. I know what he enjoys having done to him, the kinds of things you say to excite him, the things he’d want you to do but you tend to ignore when he asks for them…’

‘Stop pretending you know him better than I do,’ the admiral screamed, banging his fist into the console. ‘You’re just a host – he’s mine!’

‘And you love hearing him say it, don’t you?’

He should have seen it coming, but the hand that flew through the air towards his face still took him by surprise. The blow as half slap, half punch, all those emotions impairing his aim and the strength of his arm. It was over in a second. They stood staring at one another for a long time, Kirk still with his hand raised, McCoy clutching the side of his face. 

‘And that’s just made you into a husband-beater,’ McCoy said at last. Kirk gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, even as it fell. 

‘You’re. Not. Him.’ 

McCoy was shocked to see tears in his eyes. 

‘I’m sorry.’ It sounded flat and untrue. Kirk did not answer, but turned away from him and went back to the captain’s chair.

***

 _This sacrifice is too great,_ McCoy heard Spock think as he watched the Enterprise burning, hurtling through the new-born atmosphere of planet Genesis. _It is not one I would ever have asked him to make._

‘My god, Bones. What have I done?’ Kirk asked hollowly, following the dwindling flames of the ship’s body with his gaze. He wanted to reach out and touch him in order to reassure him, but did not dare. He could not bear being shrugged off, and he was not certain if the thought was his own or Spock’s. Rejection of one would be rejection of the other - but not for long. They were close to their goal. Anticipation, longing and fear tied them together; anticipation for the refusion, longing for a body which was only his, fear for being alone. McCoy knew, although he did not know if it was on his own accord or through Spock, that Kirk felt the same. There was no difference between the three of them in this matter.

***

When they claimed the Klingon ship for their own, Kirk had willingly surrendered the breathing Vulcan body he had brought with him, even though his embrace around it had been desperate and starved for tenderness. In that the admiral let McCoy tend to the katra-less shell of his mate, the doctor felt some kind of hope for a reunion. Watching the man who was dead but still breathed, he pondered the situation. He knew that Spock’s katra would drive him insane eventually, if it had not already done it. He knew Kirk could not live without Spock at his side. He knew there would always be a void where the Vulcan’s life essence had been, if they removed it from his mind. It would feel wrong without it, but not as wrong as he did with it.

It had to be done. He could not deny his best friend what was his to give him. Sitting in the darkness of the Klingon sick bay, he said what he would never be able to say to Spock in person:

‘I don’t think I could stand to loose you again.’ He did not know whether he spoke of him dying again or having his katra removed from his mind.

***

A few hours later, the red sun rose over Mount Seleya, and Spock turned to Kirk and said his name. Even as McCoy saw his friend restraining himself from crying or embracing the reborn Vulcan, he knew he had lost the twisted intimacy of minds he had gained. Despite his desperation, he resolved that he would endure it.


End file.
